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Since there has been so much “Trinity” debate here on the kingdomready blog, I thought this week I would cover something on subject. Even more reason since during the debates between us Unitarians and our Trinitarian visitors, we also had a “Oneness” believer join in and several people didn’t really catch his positional stance at first. The following might help with that somewhat.

Historical Christianity has had four main belief views on who is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Some might say include other views such as the Latter Day Saints and Herbert Armstrong’s Church of God folk that believe in a “God family”. But when it boils right down to it, the following four are the longer term predominant viewpoints. And they are: Trinitarian, Oneness, Arian, and Unitarian. What does each profess? Well here is each one’s primary view of God, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit.

Click here to listen to Anabaptists/The Radical Reformers as delivered by Kent Ross, Apr 28th 2008, in Atlanta Georgia. Commentary by John Obelenus

Anabaptist, lit. to baptize again, refers to anyone outside the norm.
Heresy - “the minority opinion which those of the majority opinion have the power to suppress”

Kent tells us a story to warn us from letting tradition define our scriptural understanding. He asked his Ph.D professor at North Park Seminary where in the New Testament the Trinity is defined. The response was that New Testament scholarship is on your (Kent’s) side. But the councils have given us greater understanding.

He again warns us to take a look at our people in our own time, with divisions over women in ministry, baptism as essential, conscientious objection, historicism, futurism.

The following I received from Karen in her Quote of the day email:

Sixty-three years ago yesterday, Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at
Flossenburg Prison, a mere three weeks before it was liberated by Allied forces. Bonhoeffer had been imprisoned for his role in the July 20 Plot, the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer was caught only when money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced back to him. It is a day to remember the cost of discipleship:

Taken from The Cost of Discipleship (1937)

There seems to be a huge clash that is about to happen. Recently Rowan Williams (the head of the Anglican church) gave a lecture focused on the area of law. It was really about how a better pluralistic society could work to satisfy everyone in it. The lecture was entirely misunderstood by the media, and because he talks about sharia law, the coverage and reactions were completely over the top. NT Wright even had a recent lecture on the same topic in light of the massive misunderstanding.

The New Testament documents, interpreted in their original, historical, and religious context teach that Jesus was a human being begotten by God via the holy spirit in the womb of his virgin mother, Mary. In other words, Jesus’ origin is found in his human birth, not in some pre-existent, spiritual existence. In this way Jesus is understood to be the literal descendant of the woman who was destined to crush the serpent (Gen 3.15); he is the descendant of Abraham through whom all nations (not just Israel) would be blessed (Gal 3.14, 16); he is the royal descendant of David (Luke 1.31-33) destined to rule on the Davidic throne in Jerusalem over Israel (and through Israel, the whole world, cp. Psalm 2.6-9). We are talking about a legitimate member of the human biological chain , begun by Adam and Eve in the beginning. This Hebrew idea of the human Messiah is at the heart of prophetic expectation throughout the Scriptures.